


New Haven Morning

by keiliss



Series: Gifties: Christmas 2016 [4]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms
Genre: Elves in Modern Times, Gen, M/M, losing bets, parenting under pressure, people who won't follow instructions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9114667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keiliss/pseuds/keiliss
Summary: Ysilme asked for: Another glimpse in your Sancturary-verse, one or both twins, or Elrond, any time.Takes place shortly after the end ofSanctuary





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ysilme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysilme/gifts).



> I offered to write Christmas gifts this year, which were due on Christmas Day but most grew way past their expected (under 700 word) length so one a day till Twelfth Night works better.
> 
> Not one thing has turned out as planned this year, why did I expect this to? *g*

It was early morning at the unimaginatively named New Haven, and it was cold. The air was thick and wet with mist – or fog, Erestor could never remember which was which – and the jetty lights and lamps on board the bobbing ships were hazy splotches of yellow looming against the dark. Baggage was still being loaded, one bag per person, and Gil had vanished into the thick air to greet people he had not seen in ages. Voices murmured softly, sometimes individual phrases carrying on the heavy air: _…was in the red bag; …so I told her I’d fix it when I got back. No idea what happens now; …will they serve it on board?_

And off near the edge, getting in everyone’s way, Elrond was pacing. Up and down the small jetty, hands clasped behind his back, the skirts of his long coat swishing like an angry cat each time he reached the end of his chosen strip and turned. 

Erestor watched him. He had nothing better to do, his bag was gone and so was Gil, temporarily, and the cheese roll he had brought with him was finished. Finally, for want of something to do, he stopped Elrond mid-stride.

“Trying to keep warm?”

Elrond turned angry eyes and a tight face on him. “Do you know what time it is?”

Erestor looked at the sky, realised that was a waste of time, and tapped his phone awake instead. “Four twenty,” he said.

“You’re not allowed to take that with,” Elrond reminded him. He said it in the tone of someone who was upset and wanted to spread the misery.

“What, the phone?” Erestor shrugged. “I know. I’m slipping it in my pocket though, want to see what happens. I know there’ll be no signal, and that’s all right. I’m resigned to no Twitter. I’ll miss the weather app though. I’ve never been much good at predicting it. I’ll need Glorfindel somewhere in earshot, he’s seldom wrong. He can stick his head out a window each morning and shout.” He had decided the only way to deal with being forced to finally leave Arda and cross the sea to the elven ‘homeland’ was to keep joking about it. “No need to look so grim,” he added in a kinder voice. “It won’t be as bad as we think, Gildor says.”

“What would he know? He wasn’t much more than a teenager when he left. That damn boy isn’t here yet.”

It took Erestor a moment to run the two sentences and work out they were unrelated. “Oh. Dan. Well it’s early to be up and he’s a bit of a night owl…”

“You heard what we were told at the briefing,” Elrond snapped. “No waiting for stragglers.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, El. Círdan isn’t about to make us sail without your son. The world doesn’t work like that.”

Elrond walked right up to him and stared down from his superior height. In another life that might have intimidated Erestor, but that life was far away. He tilted his head and considered Elrond’s tight expression. Elrond glared back. “He said he might go into town and find one last game.”

Erestor sighed. “Look, I know you’re worried but ‘town’ is a relative term. I’m not sure he’d find any gambling outside of the large centres anyhow, and we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere.” They were on the far north-west coast of Scotland, which was as close to the middle of nowhere as made any difference in Erestor’s book. 

“Shows what you know about the Scots! Any small village will do.”

“He’ll be here in time. The sky will start getting light and if he’s up he’ll remember and if he’s not his alarm will wake him.”

Elrond made a disgusted sound. “He could sleep through a nuclear explosion.”

“Most of us could, we’d just not wake up,” Erestor said cheerfully. He pulled his face serious quickly because Elrond was really looking worried. “Do you want me to go find him? It’s not like I’m doing anything.”

“If I wanted him fetched, I’d have done it myself. And no, then that’s another person I have to worry about missing the boat.”

“There’s more boats after this. We’re just the VIP contingent. And no one would be taking this boat out to sea without me. Gil’s not above threats.” 

“God, my mother-in-law’s already on board. What he can be thinking…”

“It’s Dan. He’s more the ‘act now, think later’ type. Always has been,” Erestor said in the tone of one who knows. “I’ve never understood how Elrohir ended up being the one to get in trouble.”

“Less experience?” Enough time had passed that Elrond could almost joke about Elrohir’s departure to the Halls: it had taken a long while. “And if he’d been here, there’d be no problem. He would have kept Dan focused.”

“More like he’d have gone and collected him by the scruff of the neck and brought him along. And helped him pretend to be sober... Oh look, someone else had the same idea.”

Two more figures materialised out of the fog - Erestor was almost sure it was fog. One was lean with red hair, a battered cap clamped on his head, and a well-worn leather bag over his shoulder. The other bore a passing resemblance to Elrond, even with the shaved head and the tattoos. 

Shaved head.

“Gildor, what did you do?” Erestor exclaimed, moving away from Elrond. He knew better than to get physically in the middle of this one.

Gildor blinked, then understood. “Oh no, fuck no, that’s nothing to do with me. I just pulled him out of a poker game. The hair was already gone when I got there.”

“Where the hell was he?” Elrond asked in a deadly voice.

Gildor, who feared nothing and no one, looked annoyed. “I went to the trouble of getting your son here in one piece and on time. The idea is that you say thank you and I move on. In town, down the pub, obviously. They have a bit of a casino going there after drinking hours.”

Elladan stood next to Gildor, rather like a toy whose batteries had just been removed. He was clearly very drunk. “Dan, why?” Erestor asked softly. 

“Got no money.” Elladan swayed slightly as he spoke. 

Erestor raised an eyebrow and was about to pursue it when a hand gripped his elbow. Gil had come up next to him soundlessly. He was wearing a suit and a good tie and even his unruly hair was tidy. Something about ‘leaving in style’ apparently. Also he had come directly from work while Erestor went on ahead with their bags. “Leave it alone,” he said quietly. “Let Elrond make sense of him. I need you to come help us up the hill.”

“Why, what’s wrong?” Erestor had a sinking feeling that he knew.

“Glorfindel. I think he did not take the list of what not to bring along seriously.”

“He wouldn’t,” Erestor said with a small smile. “I can’t believe anyone thought he would. Mind, neither did Gildor. I’m pretty sure that’s bag number two.”

“Personal items,” Gildor said blandly. Erestor had learned the hard way that he had hearing like a bat, but sometimes that could be useful. “Toiletries, underwear? You haven’t packed that?”

“Of course I have, idiot.”

Gildor smiled. It was a wicked, sexy smile and had got him into all sorts of trouble over the years. “What will you do for the next ten days while that’s all in the hold?” he asked.

“Don’t talk crap,” Gil interrupted. “Of course we can get at our baggage…”

“Oh come on. You’ve been on a boat before. You lived on a frigging island.”

Behind him Elrond was saying quite calmly, “All right, what’s this then?”

“No money,” Elladan muttered. None of Elrond’s children would have considered not answering him, no matter how drunk. “Lost. Was a bet. ‘s cold.”

“We’d better board then. I left out my jacket with the hood to wear later.”

“Don’t want to,” Dan said in a firmer voice.

Elrond was being almost unnaturally patient. “If we want a decent seat on the observation deck or whatever it’s called, we have to go now.”

“Don’t want to.”

“I don’t really care what you want right now, Elladan. Either you get on board that ship or …”

“Ugly old fashioned place, Val’nor.”

“… or I shall call your grandmother,” Elrond said, biting off each word clean and sharp.

Gildor tapped Erestor on the shoulder and muttered, “Stop eavesdropping. Go and help Gil sort out your bags. Or Glorfindel. He has a dog.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake… No, shut up. This is more interesting.”

“Grandmother doesn’ want to go either,” Elladan said earnestly. This was no secret to anyone on the jetty. Galadriel was going home because she had to, not because she wanted to.

“No, she doesn’t,” Elrond agreed pleasantly. “And if you dare suggest you’re about to do what your grandfather stopped her from doing, she’ll make your life a living hell. So don’t make me call her.”

Elladan started to cry sniffy, drunken tears. Gildor rolled his eyes. Erestor was very fond of Elladan and forced himself not to laugh.

“Come on, Dan.” Elrond said more gently. “Your mother’s at the end of that voyage, and your brother.”

“s’ going to be mad at me. Was my fault he fell.”

“Yes, well, these things happen. I’m sure he’s had time to think of all kinds of ways to pay you back. Which is going to fall a bit flat if you’re not on the boat when it docks, don’t you think?”

Elladan was silent. People were passing, anonymous shapes in the fog, and going up the gangplank. Water lapped. There were the usual creaking, groaning, unsettling noises Erestor always associated with harbours. 

“Sorry, Pa.”

“I am too. I insist on being present the first time you look in a mirror. We might want to find a cap for you before your grandmother catches sight of that.”

Gildor turned, pulling off his cap. “Oh, he can have this. And if he manages to get past Tanis without her noticing something’s wrong, he can have my lucky dice too. No one’s ever done that before.”

“Don’t you two have anything better to do?” Elrond asked tartly, taking the cap and setting it firmly on Elladan’s head. “God, has this thing ever been washed? Come on. Let’s get aboard. You can sleep it off once we get underway.”

“Was a bet,” Elladan told Erestor earnestly. “Got to honour ‘greements. You said.”

Elrond put an arm round his shoulders and turned him towards the gangplank. “You can tell Erestor all about it later. He has to see to Glorfindel now. And you and I have to sneak past your grandparents.”

Erestor watched them move off towards the wooden steps that lead to their future and then sighed. “All right, you saw them,” he said to Gildor. “Tell me about the dog. If it’s big, shaggy and elderly we’ll have a fight on our hands.”

“There’s no ‘we’ involved here,” Gildor said cheerfully. “I’m just coming along to watch. Knew I should have bought popcorn on my way through.”


End file.
